After an interminable winter of rain — and I say that as a native Oregonian who enjoys the rain! — the sun has finally begun to emerge from the clouds, and plants are finally growing. Ever since October we’ve had dark, windy, rainy, and even snowy weather the likes of which no one has seen in living memory. It was so dark that my daffodils and irises never bloomed; so much colder than usual that seeds that typically sprout in March have only begun to grow just now. And yet we’re still getting rain every day, with very rare exceptions. (Every. Single. Day.)

This winter I bought a few pumpkins to make pumpkin soup. With the last two, I realized that since they were organic, I could try planting their seeds. I figured that only some of them would sprout… well, all of them have! And I planted four! What am I going to do with four full-size pumpkin plants? For now I’ve repotted two of the seedlings in a planter; the other two are already in pots that should keep them happy for another month or so. Provençal pepper seeds I planted a month ago have just begun to sprout as well, and I’m looking forward to tasting them in autumn.

Renovation on my apartment is continuing too. I started pulling up linoleum in the entry last week, and have nearly finished. It will be nice to have an entry no longer in a state of flux.